


The Reunion

by pennyd



Category: The Lost Prince - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennyd/pseuds/pennyd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Rat awaits Prince Ivor's return to Melzarr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Traykor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traykor/gifts).



> Dear Traykor, this isn't much, but I hope you enjoy this little slice of life for The Rat and Marco. Happy Yuletide!

The Rat waited just inside the hall of the palace’s grand entryway, shoulders straight, the hand not holding his cane held at his side with military stiffness. Though it had been many years since he had darted about on a crude wheeled platform in the alleyways of London, there was a tight energy just under his skin, noticeable to any perceptive observer, that recalled the anxious stillness of his animal namesake just before it made a dash for some scrap of food in enemy territory.  
The Rat was waiting for Marco.

He was The Rat now to no one but Marco and Stefan of course. To the rest of the world he was Major James Ratcliffe of the Samavian Army—his impossible childhood dream to be a soldier somehow made reality. In fact, most of the reality of his life now would have sounded like an impossible tale from dreamland to his childhood self—worse, a taunt, like waving a golden bauble just out of the reach of grasping hands.

Marco was returning to Melzarr from a two-month tour of Samavia’s allies, strengthening ties—and forging new ones with other foreign dignities at the European courts.

Samavia and her royal leaders had had a long and often difficult road to travel in the years since the return of the Fedorovitch to the throne. The journey undertaken by the Lost Prince and his aide-de-camp with their secret message for the Secret Party had been the first of many trips across the Continent for Marco and The Rat, though none ever reached the heights of danger of the first. Prince Ivor had become one of the most popular figures in Europe (though no other country’s populace could come close to the adoration the people of Samavia felt for their king and prince), and King Stefan often saw fit to send him as their representative in Continental business. The Rat always accompanied him, the title of aide-de-camp still his most treasured, no matter the other honors he accrued.

For this trip though, The Rat had been obliged to stay behind.

Though the years and life with the Loristans had done much to smooth his sharpest edges, patience would never be counted as one of The Rat’s virtues. The last two months had been as challenging as his life ever became these days. He had not accompanied Marco on his diplomatic tour because he had been invited by a German general to Berlin for a military exercise. The general had been extremely impressed with Major Ratcliffe’s strategic prowess on his visit to Melzarr, and asked that he take part in an examination of historical Prussian battles the Preußische Kriegsakademie’s staff was undertaking. According to the general, Major Ratcliffe’s brilliant mind would bring a welcome outside perspective to the proceedings.

“You and Lazarus are our most faithful subjects. I would no more worry about you giving away our secrets than I would him,” the king had said, when The Rat had brought up his fear of giving away Samavian strategies to a foreign power should he attend the review. “And besides the fact that the general is one I count as a personal friend, I believe we stand to gain far more insight into the Prussian military mindset than Germany would of Samavia’s, even should they have more duplicitous motives. No, I bid you go, and spend the month matching wits with Europe’s best martial minds. The good Lord knows you have already devoured all the military records the libraries here hold. Best to feed you something foreign for a bit, to further develop your palate. Just be sure not to develop too much of a taste for Germany—Marco would be distressed should you leave us for longer than a month.”  
The small smile the king wore as he spoke this last part said that he knew quite well that ‘distressed’ could not describe a portion of the anguish both Marco and The Rat would suffer should The Rat leave Samavia on a longstanding basis.

And so The Rat went to Germany, and Marco to the royal courts of Europe, and by the time the prince’s retinue arrived in Berlin, The Rat had already returned to Samavia.

What the king didn’t say, but which The Rat suspected could be counted among his motives for sending The Rat to Berlin alone, and not ordering him to stay until he could join the prince’s party, was the thought that it would do both the prince and his aide-de-camp good to be separated for a while. It lay unspoken among the three of them, the knowledge of what Marco and The Rat were to each other. Probably Lazarus knew as well, though he never made the smallest allusion to it. Though the king had never suggested by so much as a look that he was unhappy with either of them, before he was a king he was a father, and a commander, and did not want either his son or his dearest recruit to settle permanently into something out of a childhood bond that grew to more out of habit or a lack of options.

King Stefan had been a god to both his son and The Rat before he was their king, so neither murmured any protest of the plan—to him, or each other outside his presence.

But the last two months had been the cruelest test of patience The Rat had ever had to endure. And though the thought of Marco abandoning him entirely was unthinkable, the prospect of him having learned to be happier without their closeness ate at The Rat’s chest. He remembered the time before he was the Loristans’, and he knew that that miserable un-belonging would return to his heart if Marco had found he no longer wanted him the way The Rat would never stop wanting Marco.

The roar of the crowd lining the road to the palace alerted The Rat to the prince’s approach before the carriage came into sight. It was a landau, and Marco was standing in the middle, in order that more of the crowd could see him waving as he passed.  
The Rat’s eyes swept over his form across the palace square as if checking for injuries or drinking in the sight of him. Finally the carriage drew up at the palace, and Marco turned to give a final salute to his subjects before mounting the steps, where the rows of liveried guards made their own precise salutes as their prince reentered his palace.

Marco, tall and strong even at twelve, had grown into his boyhood promise and now drew looks of admiration from all quarters wherever he went. He looked everything a prince should be, and men and women of similar rank and many years his senior felt a peculiar impulse of deference in his presence. There was something about Prince Ivor that announced his royalty without the need of a crown or other trappings.

He came now finally to a halt before The Rat. His expression was serious.  
“Your Highness,” The Rat said, saluting.  
“Major,” the prince replied, and returned his salute.  
“How was the journey?” The Rat asked carefully, aware of the many ears listening from the sidelines. The rest of his question went unspoken, but he knew Marco would hear it.  
Marco smiled, and just for a moment he let it be his own smile, the one born on the face of Marco Loristan, citizen of poor backrooms and no fixed country, before he smoothed it out to the calmly favorable one that belonged on the face of Crown Prince Ivor Marco Stefan Fedorovitch of Samavia. But the first smile was enough. The Rat gave an extra swing to his cane as they walked toward the audience room where the king was waiting to receive his son upon his return.

The rest of their own reunion would wait until later, when they had privacy, and be all the sweeter for it.


End file.
